


Love You Till I Make It Pop

by bubblegumkitsch



Series: Deep In The Heart [3]
Category: Demi Lovato (Musician), One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblegumkitsch/pseuds/bubblegumkitsch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall and Demi have breakfast. . . And some strawberry bubblegum <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dd4LIR-IQs">x</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Love You Till I Make It Pop

“It’s not a date,” Demi tells Selena for the thousandth time this week.

Selena barely looks up from where she’s seated at Demi’s kitchen table, scribbling frantically in her notebook in an attempt to finish her math homework before American Idol starts. “Are you sure? Because it sounds like a date.”

“It’s breakfast,” Demi shelves the plate she’s been drying in the cabinet.

“Breakfast, though?” Selena scoffs. “Why breakfast? Whose idea was that?”

Demi turns on her heel and heads to the sink to grab another dish, nervously rubbing it in circles till the cloth makes a faint squeaking sound as she thinks about how best to get out of this conversation. “I mean, I guess it was mine, but I didn’t think he’d agree to it. I’ve got work at eleven, I honestly thought he’d just drop it.” 

“But he called it a date. He came to your house and he threw rocks at your window and he asked you out on a date.”

“No. He came to my house, nearly broke my window, actually ruined my mom’s roses, and scheduled an appointment for breakfast.”

“Whatever,” Selena slams her book shut and pushes her chair back with a loud screech,   
“sounds like a date to me.” 

….

The rest of the week passes in the way that weeks in late August do. Days feel like years and nights feel like lifetimes in the sweltering heat of a Texas summer. Demi hears whispers around school about Saturday but she ignores them wilfully. Gossip keeps the grass green and considering there hasn’t been rain in almost two months she’ll allow it. 

Saturday arrives and somehow Demi feels unprepared. Not that there’s anything to be prepared for, per se, but when she wakes up the air feels heavy, wet with anticipation. 

Demi runs a comb through her hair in an attempt to salvage some semblance of sanity but gives up after a few strokes. This will have to do. It’s just breakfast, after all. Selena, and the entire town for that matter, would probably forcefully remove her from her Tom Thumb uniform if they knew that’s what she is wearing this morning, but lucky for Demi, they’re not awake yet. Besides, it’s burgundy polo day, and Demi looks great in burgundy, better than the normal beige, at least.

The moment Demi steps outside, any hope she’d had that her hair might stay somewhat normal-looking ran out the front door with the cat. Her hair poofs up chunk by frizzy chunk as she makes her way through the neighborhood into town. By the time she arrives at Kel’s it has begun to drizzle and Demi is regretting venturing out at all. She’d put on some makeup but she can tell without even looking it’s already melting off her face. Oh well, at least it’s not a date. That’ll be pretty apparent once Niall gets a look at her.

Demi pushes the door open and the bell on top of the door gives a faint tinkling chime. She spots Niall waiting by the menu stand, hands shoved stiffly into his jeans. “Mornin’, Miss Tammy,” Demi nods at the curly haired waitress, grease stains covering her patchwork apron. 

“Table for two?” Tammy raises an eyebrow lazily.

“A booth, if you don’t mind,” Niall interjects.

Tammy looks around the nearly empty diner and shrugs. “Take your pick.”

Niall leads Demi to a booth near the back. Tammy follows a moment later and places two laminated menus in front of them. Without looking, Demi orders herself some OJ and a short stack of blueberry pancakes. Niall takes a bit longer to look at the menu but finally settles on a full country breakfast of chicken fried steak, grits, eggs, biscuits and gravy, an extra side of hashbrowns and a hot chocolate. 

The first few of minutes before their food arrives pass in an awkward sort of silence, the only sounds around being the sizzle of grease on the griddle and the occasional scrape of a fork and knife against a plate from the old man scarfing down his corned beef hash in the corner. But once Niall and Demi get talking, it feels like the easiest thing in the world. Maybe it’s that his temperament is different in the morning, maybe it’s that Demi’s more at ease when Niall isn’t actively ambushing her, but as Demi watches Niall shovel huge forkfuls of greasy breakfast food into his mouth, she’s glad she showed up this morning.

In between bites, Demi learns little bits about Niall. He’s from a town called Mullingar. He already misses it a lot and wishes he could have stayed with his dad , but wanted to try living with his mom and stepdad for a while. He’s got an older brother Greg who stayed in Ireland for university, and above anything else, the boy can really eat. Demi’s seen grown men struggle to get through a full breakfast at Kel’s but, Niall puts it away in a tight twenty minutes. 

Niall’s an open book. He tells Demi anything and everything without batting an eyelash. It’s strange because she’s only known him a week, but Demi feels like she can tell him things too. 

Demi’s guarded. She’s well aware of that fact about herself. Maybe she put up these walls as a defense mechanism. The only way she could survive with a single working mother in a small town was to grow a thick skin. But somehow, Demi finds herself telling Niall things she’s never told anyone about her life, perhaps because she figured they already knew but she wouldn’t have done it if it were with someone else.

They talk and eat and talk some more. As much as she hates to admit it, Demi thinks Niall is pretty funny. Something about his perspective she totally gets. They’re both outsiders here, not entirely unhappy with their situations but both definitely aware that they don’t quite fit. 

When Demi looks at the clock on the wall at 10:50, she’s feeling a lot of things. Stuffed from breakfast (she couldn’t resist ordering a cinnamon roll), content from a good conversation, and panicked that she’ll now be late for work. “Crap,” Demi jumps up from her seat, “I’ve got to run!” She grabs her bag and darts out the door, leaving a dumbfounded Niall still sitting in the booth. 

Demi sprints to work in the rain, skidding in the doors sopping wet at 11:01. No one seems to notice, so she just sneaks to the back room and clocks in, attempting to dry herself off on the way. 

Despite her protests, she’s been placed at the register. Saturday mornings are always busy and given that she’s already out of sorts, Demi is really not in the mood for that much person to person interaction today. 

An hour into her shift and it’s worse than she could imagine. Every third person asks her how her date with Niall went and if it keeps on like this, she might snap.

“It wasn’t a date,” she ensures the neighborhood tailor Mrs. Barnes. 

“Well did he pay?” she asks, taking care to write out the charges for her check in her ledger, though her ballpoint pen craps out halfway through, forcing her to reach into a pocketbook the size of Texas itself to retrieve another one. 

“Yes,” Demi starts, “but I have every intention to pay him back! I was just in a hurry to get here.”

“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Barnes clucks. “Good lord, you are too cute, you don’t have to pay someone back for a date!”

Demi sighs heavily. “It wasn’t a date.”

“Sure thing, sweetie,” she winks, picking up her paper bag and heading for the door.

The first half of her shift passes painfully slowly and Demi could cry from relief when she sees it’s time for her break. She pauses momentarily when the clock strikes three. She could go to the break room but chances are she’ll only be faced with more prying questions about Niall once she gets there.

Demi decides to take her break outside. It’s stopped raining and though it’s sure to be a sauna out there it sounds better than the alternative. She steps out the sliding doors and plops down on the wooden bench next to the automatic pony ride. She’d meant to bring a lunch, but in her rush to get out the door this morning, she forgot. It’s just as well, though. She’s still stuffed from breakfast. 

Demi reaches into her backpack and pulls out a stick of bubble gum and her history textbook. She crosses her legs underneath herself and settles in for what is sure to be a riveting twenty minutes.

She’s only gotten through about a page when she feels a presence sit down next to her. Niall slings an arm around the back of the bench nonchalantly. “How’s work going?”

Demi turns to face Niall. “How did you know when I’d take my break? Have you been waiting outside the whole time?”

“People talk,” he shrugs.

“You’ve got that right,” Demi sighs. “Have you been telling people we’re dating?”

“Course not!” Niall pulls back in mock offense. “But if I were to tell people that, would you be angry?”

“This morning wasn’t a date,” Demi flips to the next page of her textbook aggressively.

“Right,” he nods, “got it. Just breakfast.”

Demi relaxes a little. “Yes, just breakfast.” She smiles. “Want a piece of gum?”

Niall pauses before accepting the stick, eyeing Demi curiously. “Thanks”

Niall pops the stick in his mouth and for a minute or two the only sound they hear is the passing of cars on the gravel road and the smacking of their own gum.

Demi looks over at Niall as he sticks his tongue out in an attempt to blow a bubble, breaking the thin layer of gum spread across it as he tries to stretch it out. “You’re doing it all wrong,” Demi chides, “you’ve gotta do it like this.” She demonstrates her own bubble blowing technique. Niall watches her carefully, taking in the way her tongue curves gently up through the gum, how her lips widen to accommodate the light pink bubble as it grows to the size of a clementine. 

“Hmmm,” Niall grunts, trying again, his brow furrowed in concentration as he blows a substantially-sized bubble. “Like this?” 

“Not bad.” Demi laughs at the grimace Niall makes when the bubble pops onto his cheek. He’s only distracted for a moment though and immediately starts to try again. 

“Bet I could blow a bigger bubble than you, easy!” Niall challenges, winking behind a particularly large bubble that almost covers his face.

“Ok. You’re on. What do I get when I win?” Demi thrives on competition so naturally her heart is racing at the moment.

“Winner buys dinner?” Niall offers.

“Hold your horses cowboy, let’s try lunch next.” Demi pats Niall’s thigh casually but she can feel the muscle tense underneath her touch. 

“Deal.” They shake on it and both unwrap a new stick of gum. Niall chews for a moment before blowing an impressive bubble. The type that doesn’t just pop immediately, but stays blown for a moment and deflates slowly, giving Niall time to shoot Demi a gloating look as the pink mess wrinkles back into itself.

Demi focuses on getting the thickness of her gum around her tongue just right before she starts to blow. If it’s too thin it’ll pop straight away but if it’s too thick it won’t blow up at all. 

She’s hit the sweet spot and can tell she’s in the clear when she starts to blow. The bubble gets bigger and bigger until it’s unexpectedly popped in a messy crush of lips. Niall leans in and kisses Demi, taking her breath away from the surprise of it all. 

“Cheater!” Demi pulls back, sticky strands of gum clumping to her hair. She grabs the gum out of her mouth and smushes it under the edge of the bench. 

“You’re right,” Niall shakes his head, “let’s try that again.” Before she knows what’s hit her he leans into Demi again, pressing a gentle, searching kiss onto her lips.

It’s different without the sticky layer of sugary strawberry sweetness between them. Niall’s lips are soft and firm and fit perfectly in between Demi’s. Demi’s heart is in her throat and it’s beating so fast she can feel it in her ears. She should stop him. She really should. But as Niall reaches for Demi’s hand on top of the wooden slats of the bench Demi really can’t figure out how. 

Once the stars in Demi’s head clear she pulls away quickly, frowning slightly and touching her lips under the pretense of wiping off any last bits of gum still there, but really curious to see that she actually just kissed someone. She’s just kissed Niall. She glances down at her watch. She’s still got five minutes left in her break, but the thumping feeling pulsing through her veins is screaming at her to leave.

“Sorry,” Demi gathers her book and stuffs it back in her bag in a frenzy, “gotta go.”

Niall laughs to himself incredulously. “Alright, well, you still owe me lunch!” He calls, watching Demi head back inside.

“We’ll see,” Demi shouts back over her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Niall sighs, slumping into the bench, “we’ll see.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thx kimmie :))


End file.
